America on Trial (The American Spectator)

“Your graphic of the Flag of this great Nation is unacceptable,” began @ronwilliamswv’s tweet blasting me. “UnAmerican. To be cute, it is depicted as flying upside down? Awful.”

“It’s not meant to be ‘cute’ or ‘unAmerican,’” I tweeted back defensively. “It is meant to show how some view America — as a bad nation unworthy of respect.”

I get where Ron is coming from. As recently as 9/11, his brand of patriotism was fashionable from Hollywood and government to professional sports and major media.

But not now.

Now patriotism is as out of step with the times as shag carpet and wood paneling. Worse, it is deemed hateful, arrogant, racist, xenophobic and oh so many other unsavory things.

America is on trial. Will the next statue to fall, metaphorically if not literally, be that of Lady Liberty herself? A lynch mob gathers at her feet to punish her for her sins, past and present, real and imagined. This mob is not, as one might suppose, led by the likes of Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong Un. Nor is it led by ISIS and the Ayatollah. Rather, this mob consists of home-grown groups with names like Black Lives Matter, Antifa, or those who fall under the broad banner of “Alt-Right.”